New Flag -- Doppleganger?

[rca]

[b][u]Doppleganger Flag[/u][/b] -- When you pick up this flag, you become part of a random cluster of, say, 5-9 Doppleganger tanks, all now transparent (ala that wierd Zone flag), with this cluster spread out over, say, 10-20 tank lengths. You are still killable, just as you normally would be. All doppleganger tanks move exactly as you do as well, except that they would pass thru walls, etc, since they're just image ghosts (which is a bit of a giveaway to the enemy). Your shot still is tracked on radar as coming from your true tank. Advantage: confusing to enemy -- which to shoot?!

Whaddaya think?

- RCA

[tw1sted]

It's a relatively cool idea, but your description could use a bit more clarity.

[Triumph of the Soul]

This is very similar to an idea that was already suggested on the wiki. It went by the name of ILlusion:

Opposing players see 2(?) fake copies of your tank at constant random offsets from your real position (if they are shot, either nothing happens or the fakes disappear?)

It was rejected with the comment "No.", but beyond that I don't know much else about it. I think this idea is kind of cool aesthetically, but pretty much useless. The benefit the user gains would at best be marginal, as a spray of bullets is still likely to hit you. It could even give away the user's position when hiding which could be bad. The best use for this flag is just to whittle down peoples' remaining shots with limited flags.

[F687/s]

> When you pick up this flag, you become part of a random cluster of, say,
> 5-9 Doppleganger tanks, all now transparent (ala that wierd Zone flag)

Maybe, but the only people I could see this fooling would be the same people who look right at Zoned tanks and still try to shoot them. ;-) Like A Distraction said, a spray of shots might kill them, but 10-20 tank lengths is still a big distance to spray shots (unless you're talking Emerald Mosque or something). And if the real tank is always in the middle of the cluster, then that might be kind of a giveaway. I personally saw the flag as a kind of "good" version of Senser Echo on the Flag Ideas page, and that had a pretty favorable ranking.

My only concern would be how easily it could be implemented. I haven't really looked at the code, but I'm not sure how easily it would be to mod the code so that random moving objects (in this case, tanks) appear around the main one. Since they are "ghosts" and can move through walls and stuff (meaning: no collision detection needed), I don't think it would be impossible, but I doubt it could be coded up in 10 minutes, either. But I'm glad you are coming up with some good/non-stupid flag ideas! We need more of those. ;-)

(The flag also reminds me of those green-shells that hover around the player in Mario Kart. Maybe the devs could implement some of those next... ;-)

[Quantum Tank]

I think this falls under the "unnecessarily complicated" category. It really doesn't do anything different than cl, and does it worse, so why get this when you can get cloak? It just seems to be a more complicated, less effective CL flag.

That said, I still think its a cool idea.

[rca]

Hmm.. thanks for the feedback, all. I suppose the complications of implementation would limit this idea -- so you suddenly have an extra 20 faux-tanks worth of data to bounce to all clients... ugg. Yes, does sound like the iLusion idea, too.

- RCA

[??? Lauria]

The biggest problem still can't be avoided: it would kill people's processors.